9 Quirky Things Every 'Cool' Workplace Is Required to Have

If you have any interest in games or animation or technology, you've probably watched a "look how fun and crazy our workplace is" video or photo tour of some company. They'll throw everything from scooters to Nerf guns at you to show you how their company is basically Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory if Willy Wonka made software.

But if you watch enough of these tours you start to notice the same things coming up again and again. Exactly how "out of the box" is something when every single one of your competitors is doing the exact same thing? Take a look at these things and you decide:

#9. Nerf Guns

I know what they were thinking here. "What would be a really great way to show our company is FUN and CRAZY? What if we had Nerf gun fights? I KNOW! Who DOES that? In an OFFICE!"

Short answer, lots of people. Go search YouTube for "office nerf battle" and you'll find videos left and right, like this one, or this one, or this one. They're all fairly lame -- take your pick.

I'm just saying, it's not exactly Die Hard.

Each person posts theirs as if people's minds are going to be boggled that Nerf guns would be used in a workplace. This video actually uses the CEO (and possibly the only employee) of a web design company talking about Nerf gun strategy as an advertisement for the company. "THAT'S who I want designing my website!" you are meant to say. "This is no boring Joe Schmoe who will give me a beige-colored website. He is a craaaaazy thinker!"

There is nothing more exciting than a guy standing in front of a company logo without a Nerf gun, talking about Nerf guns.

The worst part is that Nerf guns probably knock down as much office morale as they boost, leading to a wash. For every employee that loves spontaneous cubicle battles, there is a terrified quiet person or grumpy curmudgeon that will either shut down or snap when the darts go flying. But if the bosses are wacky fun types, they'll just write these people off as party poopers who have negativity problems or something, and keep telling themselves that the forced Nerf culture is great for anyone who really counts.

#8. "Cool" Pop Culture Decorations

The thing about a "cool" workplace is it has to show off how trendy and current it is, so the decorations have to be the most popular Internet memes or whatever the Internet thinks is cool that day, like goddamned Charlie Sheen or some old school Star Wars-original Legos if possible (to show that they liked Star Wars before it was cool).

Bloomberg.comFacebook demonstrates they are aware of the Charlie Sheen meme and the Obama Hope poster.

It can be a homey background decor if everybody's genuinely into that stuff, but when you display it prominently and make sure it gets photographed on a tour as a badge of how cool your company culture is, that's like a hipster pointing out their TMNT T-shirt to anyone in earshot.

Here are Zappos and Groupon showing that they remember something old that is supposed to be cool to remember now.

#7. Foosball Tables

It's the same deal with foosball tables. If you have a foosball table and the employees enjoy it, that's cool, but these things are virtually standard equipment in every tech and game company. Showing them off during a tour with the tone of, "Can you believe we have one of THESE?" is just kind of sad if this is the seventh time your visitor has heard the same spiel.

If you really wanted to blow them away, I'd suggest getting an actual soccer field, or I guess maybe a basketball court if you want something your employees would actually want to use.

#6. "Creative" Conference Room Names

BusinessInsider.comEtsy also has "Slayer Cake" and "Wu-Tang Clams" conference rooms, because they are artistic.

Naming conference rooms after something punny or some kind of retro pop culture theme might sound good to a marketer or an image-conscious executive who wants to tell reporters how different their company is, but 9 out of 10 people who actually have to go to meetings will tell you they prefer conference rooms to be named in some fashion that tells you where the damned rooms are. "Second Floor Northwest" might not sound sexy, but your odds of actually getting all the participants to show up on time will go up exponentially compared to if you name it "Johnny Ewoker" or "Fighting Chuck Norris" or "Land War In Asia" or "fl33twood mac" or "LOLCat Stevens" or "Jay-ZOMG."

Those are all Facebook conference room names if anyone was looking for another reason to hate Facebook.

They also often cross the line from a winky "We have a sense of humor and aren't stuffy office types," to an obnoxious "HEY LOOK AT ME I'M WACKY," as seen in the Facebook conference names. Other offenders include SoftLayer, which names its conference rooms after obscure inside jokes, which I'm sure visiting vendors and consultants enjoy as much as adults enjoy hearing a gaggle of teenage girls joke about which one of them is the craaaziest.

#5. Office Dogs

Another feature that trendy loft offices might as well rent to their tenants as a standard option is the office dog. I'm pretty sure the only tech/animation/gaming/design workplace that doesn't allow dogs is mine because they are mean and have hearts of stone. I keep telling them all the other companies let their employees bring dogs and it's not fair, and they just respond by asking if all the other companies' employees jumped off a bridge, would I jump off a bridge too?

Well yes, if it wasn't a very high bridge, and it meant I could bring a dog to work. Here are some of what looks like 10 million companies that not only allow dogs but have an "official" office dog.